Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 98 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Roger trying to remember the lines from a song. The candle blows out, which means he has to rush to get it relit so he can keep writing. However, Jemmy needing to use the potty ends up leading to Roger forgetting the words anyway.

Bree and Roger had an initial discussion about the word “potty.” To Bree, it means the chamberpot. To Roger, it means “barmy.” So, what would Roger use in Scotland for Jemmy doing his business on the toilet.

It starts with “poo,” but then he gets the words “clever lad” in his mind. They’re not his words, though. The words aren’t in his voice. They’re in the words of his mother. She would ask him if he was going to be clever, and that meant he was doing his business.

Brianna starts to worry that Jemmy won’t remember them if something was to happen right now. Roger points out that Brianna has her drawings and her dream journal (although that could lead to too much information) and he suggests that she does a self-portrait the next time she’s at River Run.

However, Roger thinks about his own parents. He doesn’t remember his dad, who died when he was just a year old. He has locked away the memories of his mother, though. He thinks about the locket he had that belonged to her. There were garnets in the locket, and he says those garnets saved him going through the stones the first time.

That’s when he starts to think about the Blitz and when his mom died. He was with his mom and grandma in London, where his grandma lived. There was an orderly panic down the tube stations when the roof of the station started to close in. At first, Roger says his mom let go of him, and people said that he must have fallen down the gap in the stairs to safety, which is how he survived when his mom and grandma didn’t.

However, Roger starts to remember more. His mom did let go of him but then she grabbed him and threw him into the people down below to save him. It’s how he was out of the way when the tube station roof collapsed.

After that, Roger went to live with Reverend Wakefield. It turns out he was his grandmother’s brother, and that’s how they’re related.